Gramphone Classical Guide

Gramophon reviews are available on line. All you have to do is register at the site . Ofcourse, the search engine is strange and freqently the server is "busy."

Edit: You can also find reviews of music at classicstoday.com and HFR.com.

As for compendiums, there is also the Penguin guide as well.

As good as any, especially if you are new to classical. They are all okay, if a bit limited. Also, many of the recommendations are pretty idiosyncratic. Gramophon shamelessly flogs Brit performances, a real case of "grade inflation."

My 2 cents: You might want to look for the "Third Ear" classical music guide. I don't know if it is as current as the Penguin or Garamphone books, but I found it to be much more complete for the years that it covered. Also, I've seen it at a discount price.

I don't think it worth paying $25 for the latest edition, but as a quick search on amazon shows, you can get the 2004 edition for about $7 shipping included. At that price I think it beats looking up the individual disks online on the gramophile database. The gramophone guide also has very good indices and some semi-useful "best-of" lists...

The Goode Record Guide is useful, but limited. I prefer the Penguin Guide. Couldn't collect without it. I buy every edition, and every Yearbook between major versions. I keep them for reference going back to 1973. Yes, it is somewhat biased towards British performers (Rattle is highly overrated) and it omits many disks -- but mostly because of space. That's why I keep them forever. Despite its faults, it's still the best single guide out there. Great bathroom reading, too.

You have to learn how to use record guides... First of all, completely ignore the star ratings and rosettes. They're meaningless. Read the text. Find out whether the conductor seems to be on the same wavelength as you are. A review that says "this is too romantic a reading" is fine if you're a fan of HIP, but if you like romantic readings, that should be your top pick. Too slow to a reviewer might be too fast for you. There are "ringers" in any book... the Penguin is full of overstated praise for British performers. Personal biases enter into it too. You can't take the reviews at face value, but if you read between the lines, these books are very useful.

If you are into historical performances, David Hall's The International Record Book is the granddaddy of all record guides, and it's the best written too.

See ya
Steve

This is good advice, get used Penguin Guides and Good CD Guides 1-2 yrs old at Amazon for fraction of retail price.

Penguin Guide is more useful for me than Gramophone "Good CD Guide" because there are far more listings for each work which can be helpful when buying alternate versions of same work, and there is an attempt to rank various performances.........I somewhat agree with bias to UK conductors by Penguin Guide. Since authors live in UK they are more exposed to live performances and news from UK conductors, thus tendency to give them greater emphasis, so one needs to keep this in mind.

Gramophon also has the UK bias. They are constantly promoting anything done by Rattle as well. You would think after reading reviews in Gramophon and Penguin that Rattle is the greatest thing to happen to music since Edison invented the first player.

I also would advise that buying the last year editions is more economical. For new releases, you always can go to the websites.

Tastes in performing styles are naturally influenced by national and cultural backgrounds, and reviews will reflect this kind of bias. Also the availability (or lack of availability) of music labels in the shops will impact on the recommendations that a publication will come up with. So it is not surprising that British publications show a British bias and end up recommending those CDs that are more easily obtained in Britain.

That being said both Gramophone and the Penguin guides are good indicators of quality in the ocean of possible choices that face you when you walk into a classical music store. They map out interesting repertoire for you, and then do a good job of sifting through the often multiple versions of pieces to make sure you are not buying a total fiasco too often, even if you may disagree with just how good a recommendation may be after listening.

My thoughts are that the Penguin guides are usually a little too conservative, and tend to head for safer and more central recommendations (from a British perspective of course!), whereas the Gramophone guides are a little more progressive, and definitely more in tune with early music performance techniques. The Penguin guide covers more repertoire, but as I tend to be more interested in newer performances rather than the search for some kind of mythical best version, I think the Gramophone guide is better suited for this in its more sympathetic coverage of new releases.

Incidentally I don't think Rattle is overrated at all - some of the better recent performances I have listened to have been under his baton. I prefer what Harnoncourt is doing with the central repertoire right now, but Rattle is still someone I tend to trust to provide me with thought provoking and engaging music making, even when it isn't the "best" version available.

From a 'Latin' Country, Gramophone and Penguin guides (specially Penguin) are too much british bias for my taste.
The best thing they have (IMO) is that they are very exhaustive in terms of number of works of each composer, at least compared with 'equals' spanish guides. (I own several spanish guides and the Gramophone 2003 and 2004 -cheap bought-)

Over the time I learned to read between the lines and started to give more credit to comments in forums like this than those of the 'professional independent reviewers'. (I know in Spain one reviewer that worked at the same time for DG).

Every review is based on the frame of reference of the reviewer. This can be different of the frame of reference of the reader.


BTW. I think that Rattle is overrated too.

Hes not! hes not! hes not!

Persuaded?

For baroque and early music i can recommend the reviews of goldbergweb

Zumaro: No, no, no